


Sketchbook #09

by butterflycell



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 04:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflycell/pseuds/butterflycell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Charles and Erik live together at university. Charles decides to clean up the flat and Erik is a surly hipster. In the process of tidying up a week's worth of Erik's mess, Charles comes across something that Erik is less that happy that he found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sketchbook #09

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luvinjrandsmoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luvinjrandsmoke/gifts).



> I haven't watched this is a long while, so I apologise immensely for any OoC-ness.
> 
> This is the first of several birthday fics for my wife <3

Charles shuddered at the sudden change in temperature and promptly knocked the front door closed behind him. He flicked the latch and shuffled across to the sofa, dumping him bag on a seat and tugging off his gloves. He sighed and turned to look around the room, slowly unwinding his scarf as the disbelief sunk in.   
  
He'd barely been home over the past week or so, preferring to hole up in the college library and pack in as much revision and research as he could manage. He'd come in midnight at the earliest and left again before the sun came up, grabbing a cup of tea from the café on his way into the library, rather than struggle with the small kitchenette in the corner.   
  
Glancing around now, he wished he'd been a bit more attentive during those short, precise trips from his bedroom to the front door. It seemed that, in his absence, Erik had... well, for want of a better word, Erik had _exploded_.   
  
Charles shrugged off his coat, piling everything on top of his bag because he realised now that the sofa seat it occupied was the only free surface in the room. Erik's art supplies seemed to have gained a life of their own, scattered across the coffee table and Charles' desk, not to mention the floor around his desk-cum-drawing-table. Sketchbooks and piles of drawings littered the remaining areas, interspersed with coffee mugs and take-out containers.   
  
It was safe to say that Charles was more than a little horrified. Not for the first time, he wondered how on earth he'd gotten himself into this whole scenario. He'd managed to spend the whole first two years of his degree wrapped up in the world of Biology and Genetics, and general college life. He loved Oxford, loved the cerebral atmosphere and the amount of knowledge he had at his disposal, but even he would admit that friendship was harder to find amongst the intensity of the academic rivalry.   
  
He'd been barely two weeks into his third year, stopping off for a cup of tea on his way home from a seminar, and he'd quite literally walked into a stranger who was all leather jacket and Dr Marten's. Tea had gone everywhere, as had a sketchbook and Charles had dived to catch it – only to crack his head against the other person as they reached at the same time.   
  
Erik had scowled and snarled at him, snatching his book from Charles' hands and clutching it tightly.   
  
“Watch where you're going.” He'd growled, straightening up. Charles had just raised his hands in placation.   
  
“I'm so sorry, I must've been completely lost in my thoughts.” Charles had flushed a little and turned to picking up the now empty, soggy paper cup and lid. He'd got to his feet and thrown the items away, only to find the other man still standing there, looking a little less angry.   
  
“I'm sorry about your tea. I should've been paying more attention.” He'd sighed, shuffling the book around in his hands, grimacing. “Can I buy you another?”   
  
Charles had flapped his hands and asked him not to bother, but Erik had seemed to take it as a challenge, grabbing him by the coat and dragging him back into the café. After that, they'd run into each other a couple more times by accident before they made it a regular arrangement. They met for coffee – or tea, on Charles' part – every couple of weeks at first, and it had really just escalated from there.   
  
So now, more than a year later, he was standing in the middle of Erik's chaos and wondering where to begin. He shook his head again, rolled up his sleeves and started with washing up and throwing out the rubbish. At least Erik was out for the evening at an exhibition opening, so Charles didn't have to work around him.   
  
He piled the mugs and plates and bowls into the sink, leaving them to soak as he grabbed the boxes Erik used to store his materials, starting to sort the scattered mayhem down into paints, pencils and markers. He had to stop and think about several items, eventually shoving them into the least full box and moving on. Eventually, the chaos was contained and he stacked the boxes beneath Erik's table. Looking around again, the room seemed much more manageable. He was left with the many and varied sketches and books now. These were more interesting and he made his way carefully around the room, collecting up and inspecting each sheet.   
  
The last time he'd talked to Erik properly, they'd been discussing his final project and Erik had been sketching out the initial ideas for graphic novel he would be presenting. Charles remembered the wild gesticulation and heavy pacing, Erik's eyes a little wild as he spun on the spot and his slowly forming world tumbled from him. Watching Erik create was something Charles never failed to enjoy.   
  
His brain was so scientific, worked in such a linear fashion that Erik's whirl of fragmented thoughts was incredible. His narratives came out in chunks, jumping around the projected timeline, turning corners so quickly that Charles often had to interrupt him and get him to repeat things. Erik never failed to stop and reword what he'd said, hands moving as if moulding the world in front of him. After discussions like that, he'd work through the night to document it all, hunched over his table where Charles would find him in the morning.   
  
Usually Charles would see the developing visuals pinned to the wall, but these were all new since the week before. He scanned over them, uncontentiously ordering them into characters and landscapes, doing his best to work out the order of iterations of a design. He left the stacks on his own desk for the time being, moving back to collect up the sketchbooks.   
  
They range from palm sized, filled with notes and scribbles and half formed ideas, to huge, unwieldy things that held more fluid, impressionistic work in all kinds of colours. He piled them carefully on Erik's chair and moved the stacks of sketches to the drawing table, looking around with satisfaction at the cleared out space. It almost looked habitable again. A once over with the hoover and they'd be sorted, though this was perhaps the part he disliked the most.   
  
The hoover was old and gave him static shocks at regular intervals. Erik usually looked on with amusement, laughing each time Charles yelped or cursed at a shock. He'd poke at him with his foot as he worked at the floor where he was working and Charles would threaten him with minor bodily harm as he got more and more grouchy about cleaning. Erik wouldn't fail to do the washing up for the next couple of days though, so it was a decent trade-off.   
  
He did a once over of the room with the hoover, working as quickly as possible, shaking off his stinging joints every time a shock rattled through him. He pushed back the sofa a little to make sure he collected all the crumbs from some sort of biscuit explosion, and the edge of another sketchbook peaked out. He turned off the machine, kneeling down to pull it free.   
  
He flipped open the cover, finding Erik's familiar scrawl jotting down the dates he used the book and the media he used. He flicked through a few of the pages, absently taking in the shapes and lines of various anatomical elements before flicking to a half finished drawing of a face in profile – and not just any face, it's _his_ face. Charles paused for a long moment, considering the pencil strokes and the shading around the features that fades to scratchy lines at the hair and shoulders.   
  
He turned the page, finding multiple attempts at his eyes. Next page, his nose, next page his mouth. With each page, another element was explored, from his favourite leather shoes to the mess his hair grew out into when he goes too long between cuts. There were more portraits in various stages of completion, done in pen and marker and pencil. The sketchbook was nearly full, seemingly documenting... well, documenting _him_.   
  
One portrait in particular stood out. Erik had used a mix of marker pens and colouring pencils to finish a portrait that seemed to be him at his desk, an elbow on the table surface and the hand clutching at his fringe. He looked tired, staring at his laptop, and Erik had somehow picked out the way the glow of the screen had hit his face at odd angles. It was one of the better pieces he'd seen Erik finish.   
  
He moved to close the sketchbook, mind starting to ruminate on what it all might mean, when a sheet of a different type of paper fell from the back. He bent to pick it up and slide it back in, but when stopped to look at it, he felt his breath catch suddenly and sharply in his chest.   
  
This picture wasn't the same realistic style as the rest of the sketchbook, more similar to the style he used on his illustration coursework. The paper is coarser, and there was a distinct fold down the middle, old and soft from being worked so many times. The drawing was really just a sketch that has been worked into over and over, with various pens and pencils – but there was no way to mistake the two figures.   
  
Erik had drawn the two of them, wrapped close together. Erik's hands were on his face, pulling him close and Charles can see that he was staring straight into Erik's face. Erik had captured some moment where they were at the brink of colliding and Charles couldn't help but frown a little. He closed the sketchbook and left the drawing on top, putting them to one side for a moment. He needed some time to work out how he felt, and suddenly finishing up the cleaning seemed like an incredibly good idea.   
  
He finished the hoovering in record time, tucking it away in the cupboard before moving to the kitchenette to wash up and clean round the surfaces. He avoided the drawing, instead moving to his own room and collecting up his dirty clothes, ready for washing first thing in the morning. He stripped his bed and made it back up before deciding on a shower.   
  
He was starting to feel the tug of tiredness, and the hot water relaxed him. He let his head drift back over the past couple of years, considering everything he'd learnt about his unlikely friend.   
  
Erik was a solitary creature for the most part. He regularly worked himself to the point of illness, but he always did his part around the flat. He cooked on the nights Charles had late lectures, or when a quick trip to the library turned into a three hour research session. He snapped at Charles for trailing in mud and had was very particular about how to cook potatoes, going to far as to ban Charles from the kitchen mid-preparation on several notable occasions.   
  
Erik only drank occasionally and went out even less. If he wasn't at his desk, he was plugged into his laptop and curled around the machine, staring intently at whatever was flickering over his screen. Sometimes, he'd shuffle into Charles' room and take up the spare side of his bed whilst pointedly ignoring him. Sometimes Erik just liked knowing there was someone in the room with him.   
  
Frankly, Charles liked those moments. He liked Erik's surly nature, and he loved the moments that it broke in childish enthusiasm and good humour. He'd enjoyed the intellectual nature of his friendships within University, but Erik had made things just a little brighter. He had intelligence to counter Charles, and frequently challenged him over philosophical and ethic debates that arose from some of his advanced research concerning genetics and study of mutations. Let no man dare think Erik was any less intelligent that the high academics of Oxford University. Several of Charles' acquaintances from college had made the mistake of assuming that an Illustration student couldn't keep up with them. No-one had belittled Erik since that encounter.   
  
Charles flicked the water off, towelling himself dry, brushing his teeth and pulling on pyjamas before heading back to his room, mind still caught up on itself. He towelled at his hair, trying to push it into some semblance of sanity before dumping the towel in the hamper and going back to the lounge to collect his things and hang them up.   
  
With everything put in place, that only left the matter of Erik's drawing and accompanying sketchbook.   
  
He stared at it for a long moment before making his mind up. He picked up the items and took them to Erik's table, moving aside the stack of development sketches to leave the sketchbook in the centre. He dug out Eric's post-it notes and scrawled a message onto the top one, peeling it off and pressing it gently to the drawing.   
  
Nodding to himself, he stepped back, taking in the tableau and letting out a long breath. Turning his back, he headed into his room, grabbed a book from his bedside table and settled in under the covers.   
  
–   
  
He genuinely found himself lost in the grip of the unravelling story, only looking up when he heard the front door.   
  
Charles froze, feeling his heart beginning to thud a little uncomfortably in his chest. The more he thought about the almost certain events that were about to unfold, the more deeply he regretted. What had he been thinking? Erik was perhaps the closest friend he'd ever had, and who was to say that he'd interpreted Erik's drawing correctly? Or what if he'd changed his mind about it all since he'd drawn that picture?   
  
He shook his head and forced his eyes back onto his book, even as his ears strained to hear movement out in the lounge. He could hear Erik shuffling around a little, but then he heard a low, harsh ' _fuck_ ' and his heart leapt into his throat. There was a long, almost painful stretch of silence before he heard loud, angry footsteps heading in his direction.   
  
“You had _no_ right to go through my things.” Erik growled, Charles' door slamming open. He looked up to find Erik glaring, whole body tensed and primed to bolt out of there. Slowly, Charles slotted his bookmark in place and closed the book.   
  
“Frankly, if you leave something under the sofa and proceed to create the mess you did, you really should've been prepared for this.” He raised his eyebrows and Erik's expression darkened – though he was beginning to flush with what Charles assumed was acute embarrassment.   
  
“Still, you had no place to look through my book!” Erik snatched his beanie off his head in frustration and ran a hand through his hair.   
  
“When have you ever stopped me from looking through your work before?” Charles reasoned. Erik ground his teeth together for a moment. “Look, if you want us to ignore that sketchbook, that's fine. If not, stop being so melodramatic, go get changed and come to bed.”   
  
Erik stood there for a long while, his face dropping into a frown, hands twisting at his hat as he regarded Charles. His eyes flit around the room, and Charles could feel his heart in his throat again.   
  
“Okay. Fine.” He turned on his heel, leaving the door open and disappearing out of view.   
  
Charles watched the doorway nervously, listening to the sounds of Erik slamming around his room for a little while before appearing for a moment to cross the main room to the bathroom. Another slammed door and the sound of water running. He emerged a few minutes later, hair damp and free of too-old t-shirts and well worn skinny jeans. He shuffled towards Charles' room, pointedly ignoring his eyes as he flicked off the lights in the lounge and closed Charles' door behind him.   
  
Without a word, he crossed the room and crawled under the covers next to him, wrapping the duvet round his shoulders and turning away from Charles.   
  
“Don't be such a child.” Charles shook his head, opening his book back up.   
  
“You invaded my privacy.” Erik ground out.   
  
“You left it under the _sofa_.” Charles countered. Erik let out a strained sigh of frustration. He flopped onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. After a long moment, his hand wormed up out of the blankets, brandishing the post-it note Charles had written.   
  
“'Some of the best yet.'” He read.   
  
“You don't do realism much.” Charles said carefully. Erik glanced over then, just for a moment. His face was still displaying clear irritation.   
  
“The flaws are too easy to notice.” He replied, voice curt. “Besides, objects are boring, and not many people sit still for long enough to study.”   
  
“Is that a compliment?” Charles asked with a smile.   
  
“It's the closest you'll get to one tonight.” Erik glared at him. Charles rolled his eyes, reaching over to put his book to one side. Erik growled in frustration again and Charles was about to ask what he'd done this time, when he found himself with a lap full of self-conscious, angry flatmate.   
  
Erik straddled his hips and watched him carefully, brows drawn into a frown. Charles didn't really know what to do with his hands and they fluttered between them for a moment before he settled for placing them on Erik's thighs. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat as Erik licked his lips and reached carefully to rest a hand against Charles' cheek. His heart was pounding at about ten times the normal rate and he couldn't quite bring himself to look away from Erik's surly glare.   
  
Erik leaned in and kissed him gently. It was surprisingly soft and honest, just a slow press of lips against each other. It seemed only natural for Charles to move his hands up a little to grip at the sides of Erik's t-shirt. Erik took it as a cue to make the kiss just a little deeper, his other hand coming up to cradle his jaw and hold him close.   
  
But then it was over and Erik pulled back, brushing his thumb across Charles' cheekbones for a moment before moving back onto his side of the bed and lying back down. Charles watched him for a moment, a little stunned, but Erik was just staring back up at the ceiling, hands behind his head with that frown still fixed on his face.   
  
“Are you going to turn the light out or not?” He asked sharply, turning the frown back on Charles, who nodded a little dumbly and turned off the bedside lamp.   
  
He wriggled down under the covers, careful to keep a bit of space between them. He wasn't entirely sure where they stood or what Erik might be expecting now, but there was plenty of time to discuss it the next day. He turned onto his side, mind still spinning a bit and he was just making himself comfortable when he heard Erik muttering something under his breath before arms moved around his torso and pulled him back.   
  
He tried not to tense too much, focussing instead on the feeling of Erik burrowing his forehead against the back of his neck. His heart was still pounding away, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing this time. Erik's hand slid up to settle over his chest, flat palm and spread fingers pressing firmly against his sternum, holding him in place.   
  
“Stop thinking and go to sleep.” Erik growled. Charles kicked backwards, his heel catching Erik's shin with satisfactory force, but at least it broke the ice a little and he felt himself relax slightly.   
  
If they didn't end up talking the following day, so much as not leaving Charles' bed except for dire necessity, then it wasn't the end of the world really. Neither of them were going anywhere any time soon.


End file.
